It's Official, Slow Mobile Experiences Will Cost You

It’s official - slow mobile experiences equals lower search revenue. Google announced this week, that in July of this year it will be using your site’s mobile speed as an important signal in its ranking algorithm. Prior to this, Google only indirectly implied that speed was important. Now we know that your slow site will decrease your search traffic and revenue starting in July. Moreover, as Google rolls out its mobile-first ranking algorithm starting this year, this impact will influence overall site rankings, even for desktop website visitors.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM, a leading online gifting service and customer of Moovweb, relies heavily on organic search traffic. In anticipation of the Google announcement, the brand utilized Moovweb Platform to speed up its website for mobile. “We saw an immediate improvement in the Google Page Speed score from 56 to 99 and dramatically increased page speed to drive a considerable uplift in conversion rate,” said Amit Shah, the company’s CMO.

By utilizing Moovweb’s site acceleration capabilities, 1800Flowers’ website saw an 85% reduction in time-to-first-byte, a measure of how quickly a mobile browser starts receiving data. Site acceleration is part of a broader Moovweb offering that enables incredibly fast mobile experiences by utilizing Google AMP and Progressive Web Applications (PWAs).

“Progressive Web Apps are especially exciting for 1800Flowers”, says Shah, “because they are so fast and smooth. They are built using technologies which have historically been available only to native applications. Our Progressive Web App and AMP pages together deliver our fastest and smoothest mobile experience yet”.

Moovweb Platform makes it easier to build and maintain PWAs that drive the highest revenue increases. “Launching and maintaining a sub 2-second loading mobile website is no easy feat for eCommerce web teams. Customers demand the site be fast, executives mandate detailed analytics, partners inject 3rd party plugins, and business unit owners require rapid updates. Satisfying all these stakeholders with minimally-staffed teams is a challenge,” says Ajay Kapur, CEO of Moovweb. “We get that, that’s why we created the Moovweb Platform.”

Moovweb Platform is a mobile-first presentation layer. It offers all the essential capabilities necessary to launch a PWA including search indexing support, high-speed edge-side routing logic, careful cache management using service workers, API caching/orchestration, JavaScript optimization, use of legacy web pages for less important content, rapid Google AMP page migration, server-side A/B testing, progressive rollouts, support for open frameworks such as React, and much more. “Our early bet and focus on a fast, mobile-first web is paying off,” says Kapur.

To date, ‘mobile first’ has been a mantra. With Google’s announcement, ‘mobile first’ is literally how Google will assess and rank your web experience against competitors. Fix it in the next five months or your Desktop SEO will suffer.